a hello from the East (I have no idea what I'm doing)

Every time I find it so damn interesting.

You know, to cross the eastern border of Finland.

This time I went by train (Allegro) (it was my first time by train).

I followed in despair how the amount of snow on the ground grew the more East I came.

There were a lot of ponds and small lakes near the border. The water looked shady, orange and brown. That's actually why I assumed they were lakes (after thinking about different options considering pollution).

Yes, I'm used with the green (grey) sea.

I also saw two swans.

Honestly I wasn't too sure of if we actually had crossed the border until I started to see the colorful wooden houses, heavily used and crushed by time and weather.

I though crossing the border by foot (you know, walking into that building and out again and back into the bus) was a slight challenge for the nerves. Now I sat two and a half hours surrounded by both Russian and Finnish custom officers who walked around in the carriages and one of them had a dog and they all looked so scary. The worst part was that I didn't know the procedures of crossing the border while travelling by Allegro. Not that it really would have made any difference. I din't really know what I was doing but apparently I didn't do anything wrong. We got informed pretty well after all. (And no, you don't leave the train at any point)

And just so that you guys know, apparently Russia has changed their time system again. I didn't know that. They use switch to summer time again. But as neither my phone nor I didn't know that, I walked around not knowing the actual time for a day. And this also messed up the arranged meeting at the station with my host. Just saying.

I'm here for an exchange. I'm going to stay for three weeks. It's arranged by a teacher at a school here. I've been here for three days and I still don't know what I'm supposed to do here. Yesterday I joined two Finnish language lessons, one for 15-year old students and one for 8-year old. I helped the teacher a bit. Then I talked in Finnish with two last year students. I was told that I could go home whenever I wanted to. So after some talking and eating with those two students I went home.

I think it took three hours for me to get home to my hosts. First I walked some time to the only metro station that I knew for sure where it was (Gostiny dvor). Then I half guessed which station to go to. I like had almost no idea, I remembered the name of the station nearest to my hosts vaguely. And hahahahaha I guessed right take that. I took the journey home as a challenge. I had all the time in the world. If I would have gone the wrong way I would just have gone back to the start and try again, no problem. After the metro I started walking because I had no idea which thingy (bus, marshutka, electric bus etc) went where. All I knew was to keep to a certain side of a railway. I walked across it and after two minutes I realized I was walking the wrong way and turned back. After 20-30 minutes I gave up and asked google maps for help and got to know that the way I walked first was the right way. So I walked back again. Always trust the first gut feeling. Especially if you don't know what you're doing. After almost an hour of a nice walk I was at the right blocks of flats. The next challenge was to find the right house and then the right door. I found both without problem. Everything had actually gone so well until I came to the front door of the apartment. I hate doors and they hate me. After some time of trying to unlock the door (with two locks) I gave up and rang the doorbell.

Walking to the school from the metro the next morning was also based on a vague gut feeling. We had been looking at the map the night before but I'm terrible at remembering what I've seen. But I found my way even thought it again kinda felt like I didn't know what I was doing.

The second day at school my task was to, together with another person, play with the children during the breaks, and preferably try to include some Finnish words. It was kinda fun, and during the lessons I sat with my colleague in an office and talked.

I'm finishing this post 5 of April because I'm lazy.

And the most important, my hosts are awesome.  

you know you're in Spain when...

This was The Monday of Possibilities, the day when I finally could get the tickets I had reserved on Saturday. First I tried to print them from a machine, only to realize that I would need to pay the full prize for the reservations. Thanks to a assistant/worker I didn't do it. He told me to go to a normal cashier, and so I did. Then I experienced the finest part of Renfe's system. 

Still remember when we couldn't go to Sevilla because we should have made the reservation and get the tickets printed 24h in advance? Now in Barcelona the worker behind the desk just looked at me when I gave him my pile of booking numbers and said:

- Your reservations for the train to Madrid today has been cancelled because you should have gotten your tickets printed yesterday, 24h in advance.

What? 

The office was closed during the whole weekend. Also yesterday. But luckily there were some seats left and the problem was solved. I got the rest of the tickets without any problems, double checked them and everything was settled and done. 

The train left on time. Can you believe that? Our bags were screened and all the tickets were checked carefully before boarding the airplane, sorry, train. The crew gave us earphones (for free!) and a movie was shown on the screens.  The system might be all dizzy but the service on board is the best I've ever experienced! 

"Dear passengers, we are arriving at Madrd central estation"

The subway in Madrid though was interesting. When buying a single ride ticket you were supposed to pick on which station you are getting off at, the shorter distance, the cheaper. 

You can only imagine our happiness when we found a huge map of the subway painted on the floor. After five minutes of trying to find our connections and stations we realized it was a map of the regional train network.

The subway trains are driving on the left side. 

I don't how to say this but when I saw the subway of Madrid I understood the economical difference between Catalunya and Spain. 

The next problem was faced at the Hat, our hostel. My booking hadn't reached their system. What. The receptionist had never heard of hostels.com. I don't know how long this kind of luck will last but there were some beds left. 

The Hat has a bar on the roof. Need to say more?

During these hours another friend of mine arrived from Turku. We two are going to continue for 10 days more and my other friend is flying home the next day.

The evening was spent by walking around in the center. The streets were full of happy and loud Spanyards, blocking the way as well as they could. There was a 50m line to a cafe that was specialized on churros. I also saw several fake Christmas trees with intense blue blinking lights. 

I might have been a mistake wandering around aimlessly without lookind at the street names or the map, but eventually, after a lot of similar confusement as in Barri Gotic in Barcelona, we found our way back to the hostel. 

The travel plan looks like this from now on:

Madrid-Granada-Madrid-Bilbao-Barcelona-back North

This was an evening when I realized that I had forgotten my towel to Barcelona. 

And that there had at some point been a misunderstanding at the ticket office in Barcelona because we had seat reservations for a train from Barcelona to Bilbao, but not from Madrid to Bilbao. I thought double checking would have been enough. 

F